Righting a Wrong
by Fearless miko
Summary: Time turner fic! Hermione Granger and Severus Snape pairing.
1. Righting a Wrong

_Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter_

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><p>Hermione sighed. It was finally done.<p>

Weight from the previous weeks of toil and stress began to ease from her shoulders and she sagged against the chair she'd transfigured feeling more exhausted than she could ever remember without the pressing need to complete her task weighing on her mind.

The project she had begun last year was finally complete and she couldn't help feeling a swell of pride at her abilities.

It had taken ages, months even, of toiling her time away in an empty classroom heavily warded to keep her secret safe. She had lost sleep, forgotten to eat, withdrawn from her friends, suffered more back aches and headaches than should be humanly possible and while her grades remained as pristine as ever, even her professors had noticed the lack of luster and detail her essays had possessed before the project commenced.

The charms and spells used to bring her to this point were far beyond advanced for her level, restricted to only masters in their respective fields and blithely she acknowledged the many nights she had pushed her magic over the limit and subsequently put herself in danger. But the reward, she told herself with glittering eyes of resolve, was well worth the risk.

She had gotten more than a few raised eye brows from Madam Pince over the last several months for what seemed like entirely unrelated topics being checked out together.

Her relationship with the strict librarian held certain privileges not extended to others in the student body and Hermione did not doubt for one second this relationship was the only reason the Headmaster had not been informed of her rather suspicious activities. She did, however, invite Hermione in for tea one evening and sharply informed her that she _chose _to look the other way and would not have the girl thinking that she was ignorant of the implications.

Hermione was smart enough to see the respect for what it was. She was giving her the benefit of the doubt and telling her that she trusted in Hermione's ability to use the knowledge she gained from this trust to benefit them all in the coming war. She had bowed her head to show her deep gratitude and as an acknowledgement of the honor she knew this action bestowed.

She had no intentions of letting her down.

The item was held carefully in her palm, the gold surface glittering with the light from the sun streaming through the windows. Such a small thing to carry such a heavy responsibility. Much like Hermione, herself.

Some people would call what she was about to do dangerous, mad even.

Harry would have shown his displeasure with a furrowed brow and a soft reminder that it was too much of a risk. Ron would have sputtered incoherently before calling her barking mad with the whole Weasley family to back him up. Moody would have said there were too many 'unknowns', Tonks would have given her one of those looks that was meant to be compassionate and understanding but only came across as condescending. Dumbledore would have denied her request with a slight twinkling in his eyes before offering her a lemon drop and Snape... Well, his reaction would have been the worst of all. She could just hear the sting of unique insults that always seemed to support his point as well as send a blow to the most unprotected point of your ego.

If she had heard that now, if any of them had been there with her to give those reactions, would she go through with the plan?

She bit her lip in contemplation, staring at the time turner in her palm with the kind of wariness it deserved. She had exactly five minutes to decide before Ministry officials apparated to the gates and took her into custody. Her wards would hold them off a few more minutes but not for long if any of the professors decided to assist in bringing them down and that was a protection she did not count on.

She'd gone over the Arithmancy calculations again and again with the same answers. She had spent hours pouring over maps and yearbooks, old Daily Prophets and had even managed to talk Madam Pince into releasing a list of known Death Eaters, both living and dead, into her custody.

The librarian had been impressed and rather curious how Hermione had managed to figure out she was in the Order but the young witch had just shrugged, saying a wise old wizard like Dumbledore wouldn't keep someone as important as their records keeper out of the loop. She was a dangerous source of information and knowledge, having read every book that ever sat on the shelves of the Hogwarts library and it hadn't been difficult to put the two pieces together.

Hermione had never been more sure of anything in her life. So why was she hesitating? Was it really the disapproving opinion of the others that stayed her hand?

She was lucky to have gotten this far without being discovered and the longer she waited to make a decision, the higher the risk of having the artifact confiscated by the Ministry became.

She had used a weak counter fitting spell to copy the time turner in her fourth year at the last minute, unable to part with the possibilities the artifact offered her.

Dumbledore had taken it from her personally and she had a feeling the twinkling in his eyes as he pocketed the object spoke of his knowledge of what she had done. So really, she had the Headmaster's approval, albeit in an indirect way. Not that she could use that information in the slightest to defend herself should she stand trial before the Wizangamot.

There was a muffled banging sound and Hermione winced as she felt the assault on her wards. She was out of time.

This was it. This was the moment she had worked tirelessly for. The wards placed on the time turner to keep someone from going too far back in time had been removed this very evening. It felt lighter in her palm and she could feel an increase in vibration in the field around it that spoke of the freed reserves of power.

The Ministry would of course be aware of this removal the moment it occurred and would simultaneously realize the item in their possession was a counterfeit. Hence, the reason for the violent noise outside the classroom door.

With a deep breath, Hermione shouldered her bottomless bag and began to turn the wheel, counting back carefully on the number she had checked and rechecked over the past few months. There was no room for mistakes.

One half a click more and taking care to set the wheel on the appropriate numbers, she let go and felt the powerful pull on her naval as she was drawn back in time. Her body disappeared with a 'pop' just as Shacklebolt, right hand man to the Minister and Auror, burst through the door.

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><p><strong>AN: Reviews are my fuel<strong> **3**


	2. Down the Rabbit Hole

_Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter_

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><p>It felt as it always had, being pulled through time, only more powerful than she had expected. She knew it was because of the time difference. After all, she was going much, much further back than she was used to. Instead of the quick drift that lasted only a few seconds, this felt like falling and she was picking up speed with every passing moment.<p>

The sensation was slightly uncomfortable, something she related to the residual dizziness of riding too many rides at an amusement park. All the rules and suggestive facts she had absorbed from hours of reading about time traveling came flying back to her on instinct as a well-rehearsed coping mechanism was set into motion. She clung to one particular line that, with a little practice, had made the sensation feel as normal as riding a train. She pictured herself wedged between Ron and Harry in one of the seats, eating candy bought from the trolly and warning them to change into their robes before they arrived.

Another sharp, unnatural lurch had her stomach flipping uncomfortably. _'Close your eyes, breathe and it will all be over before you know it.'_

Only the moment the ride was supposed to come to an end came and went, leaving Hermione feeling an alarm that grew into full blown panic as the seconds ticked by without a relief of the dizzying sensation and lines of light threatening to pierce her eyes like daggers should she open them.

Breathing out in a steady stream to keep air from forcing its way up her nose, she suddenly found it difficult to take air in. The threat of suffocation was enough to send her heart rate climbing and she felt the horror cover her like a white sheet as she realized all her time traveling in the past before had been done _in the space of a single breath._

The force made it impossible to move her arms in order to reach her wand and for a dreadful second, she felt her world closing in on her as her mind grew dim with the lack of air.

A powerful burst of wandless magic was all that saved her, born of sheer adrenaline as she managed to cast the Bubblehead charm over herself and gratefully breathed in the oxygen it provided.

Calming herself as she panted for breath, she concentrated hard on stretching out her senses, sucking in a shocked breath at what she felt. Something else was..._intervening_, her mind struggled to supply the right word. But she could feel it, this powerful awareness, possessing more magic than anything or anyone she had ever felt. It had taken hold of her time path and was altering it.

With a gulp, she realized her only choice was to let the turner take its path and she braced for impact.

It was not her lucky day, as it turned out. As she realized the tiny spec of brown in the distance was actually the ground coming up to meet her within the frame of a few seconds, she managed to cast a wandless Cushioning spell just before her body hit the floor. As the ground absorbed her form like the material on a Muggle trampoline, she clenched her teeth as she realized what was coming next and knew she had absolutely no way of stopping it.

With a startling lurch, her body was thrown into the air as the floor instantly righted itself when the spell dissipated and she was thrown heavily into the ceiling before promptly falling to the ground again with as sickening crack.

Debris loosened from the impact with the ceiling fell mercilessly on top of her, leaving her a bleeding, broken mess of a girl in a crater-like indention in the unforgiving stone worthy only to the dungeons of Hogwarts. She was, thankfully, unconscious even before she hit the ground.

For a moment, the silence was allowed to stretch as the Potions classroom full of six year students simply stared in shock and amazement along with their Professor, no one quite possessing the mental capacity to think clearly after such a surprise.

The strange girl lay in a shimmering golden force field flickering against the settling dust around her, making her look almost like a sentient being. Her shoulder length, brown curls lay in a halo about an angelic face that would seem almost serene were it not for the blood and gashes that littered her arms and legs, visible where her robes had been ripped apart in places. Sparks of electric blue burst to life and burnt out in the same moment in various places surrounding the impact as many layers of shield charms fell with her unconsciousness.

Many were in shock from the impact and the catastrophic crash that came with it, many were astonished at the level of power she exuded, others that knew where to look were rightfully intimidated by the amount of power it took to sustain _that_ many shields at one time while the rest were simply outdone by the fact a strange girl no one had ever seen before that was their age had just crashed quite spectacularly into the one place on _earth_ no living person was supposed to be able to enter using magical means.

In the end, it was a seventeen year old Severus Snape who came forward in long, sure strides, his face a mask of indifference as he knelt next to the girl, staying wisely outside the force field's circumference and casting a quick Diagnostic spell to ascertain the damage. A few flicks of his wand freed her of any remaining debris as he waited for the results to appear.

The ink-black robes he wore naturally curved around her body, shielding the sight of her form from the other students.

The effect was immediate, as if not being able to see the cause of the calamity anymore was able to spurn them into action.

Professor Slughorn sent a quick Patronus to inform the Headmaster and ordered the rest of the students back to their common rooms, dismissing the class in a stern voice.

Lilly Evans knelt next to Severus and whispered something too soft to hear legibly before raising her wand, a smooth, graceful thing of Sea birch and unicorn hair, over the girl in pause.

Severus trained black eyes to the results of the Diagnostic spell, the stern tilt of his brow the only insight into the wrought iron determination he held. His eyes scanned the results in a hurried motion twice before calling out the direst of her injuries in a crisp tone, careful to articulate every syllable with an almost painful perfection.

"Internal hemorrhaging in the upper-left quadrant of the right lung." His own wand, black as night and sharp as a knife, made harsher, more deliberate movements compared to the fluid grace that was Lilly's style.

Even before he finished the sentence, the sleek redhead's wand was making complicated motions in the air and the rushing hum of magic filled the room.

There was a sickening crunch as her lung was pushed back into place and re inflated. A collective wince when her bones were reset. Slughorn actually turned his body away when they mended the fractures in her skull. Mending the part of her jaw that had come unhinged had been tricky but Lilly had managed to pull it off to the awe of her Professor, who had no idea either of his pupils were capable of such advanced magic.

The girl was already regaining consciousness as the Headmaster and Madam Pomfrey entered the classroom only to be shocked into place at the sight that met them. It was obvious that both had anticipated the sight of a dying girl, when instead they found a girl that appeared to be just waking up from a quiet nap. If it weren't for the catastrophe of a potions class that was all around her and the report of Slughorn's Patronus earlier, the Headmaster would hardly have suspected her capable of being involved.

Seeing the pair of students beside her, Mr. Snape and Miss Evans, his expression changed from thinly veiled astonishment to a knowing grin.

He marveled at the fact they had had time to heal all her injuries, including the small ones, clean up the blood and even repaired her robes.

He carded a hand through his bright-red beard thoughtfully, sky blue eyes twinkling in his assessment of the situation. His robes of royal purple lined with silver stars clashed loudly with the fire red of his beard and hair, making him stand out in stark contrast to the grey rubble of his surroundings.

"Well done, the both of you," he praised jovially. "One hundred points will be awarded to both Gryffindor and Slytherin for your sharp wit, quick thinking and unprecedented skill demonstrated for for your age. I think, however, that Madam Pomfrey and I can take it from here. If you would be so kind as to please return to your common rooms for the evening..."

Even as he said this, there was a soft, feminine moan at their feet as all attention shifted to the girl.

Almond eyes tried to blink away the blurriness as the shapes in front of her moved and shifted together in one great mass. "My head..." she managed to utter as she tried to sit up and was promptly pushed back with a firm but gentle nudge.

She felt as her hand was taken and the smooth glass of a potions vial was pushed into her palm.

"Drink this," the woman's voice told her and she complied, recognizing that tone all too well.

The taste was just as terrible as she expected it to be but when she opened her eyes again, this time everything came into focus and she was met with the sight of Madam Pomfrey looking...exactly the same! For a moment, she thought she had failed until the blurriness finally left her completely and she could see the significant lack of lines in the woman's face as she peered back at her critically. Her hair was a rich brunette instead of the grey-washed brown she remembered and her cheeks and lips were rosy with the tone of youth.

Hermione took a single breath and barely had time to exhale before the questions came, swift as bullets.

"What year is it?" The healer asked her assessingly, her fingers pulling up one of her eyelids to inspect her pupils.

Hermione blanched at the question. Something had altered her time path, so she really had no idea _what_ year it was. If she couldn't answer or answered incorrectly, they would think she had brain damage and she decided immediately that she did NOT want to find out how far advanced this time was on memory charms.

That was when her eyes fell on the other two faces gazing down at her. There was a red haired witch that instantly reminded her of Ginny but with softer features and something eerily familiar about her hazel eyes and next to her...she felt the bottom fall out of her stomach as she met the gaze of her former Potions Master, his face exactly as she remembered only without the lines of age and fatigue that plagued him in the future.

His gaze narrowed on her sharply in suspicion at her expression of surprised recognition and she hastily scrambled her features into a mask of calm before answering.

"1977," she guessed, judging that they both looked to be about 17. She narrowly managed to stop herself from breathing a sigh of relief when the Mediwitch nodded sharply and continued in her line of questioning.

"What is your name?"

"Hermione Jean Granger," she answered without hesitation. This part was easy, at least. There was no reason to go by another name if the identity you're trying to hide hadn't come into existence yet.

"When were you born?"

Hermione did the math as quickly as she could, hoping no one had caught on to the slight hesitation. "April 7th, 1960."

The Mediwitch nodded and with an air of satisfaction, turned to regard the brightly-colored wizard standing to the side. Hermione had not noticed him before now as the form of Madam Pomfrey had shielded the sight of him.

She felt herself hastily trying to lower her brow from surprise and close her jaw from shock but not before both Lilly and Severus noticed the reaction.

Madam Pomfrey continued on without hesitation. "She was pretty banged up in the impact, whatever the cause," she eyed the wreckage with potent disapproval. "But she'll make a full recovery. I couldn't have done a better job myself, both Mr. Snape and Miss Evans have shown impressive skill. I would suggest a good meal and a long night's rest, perhaps a checkup in the morning, nothing more."

"Thank you, Madam Pomfrey, that is quite a relief to hear. My dear girl, do you think you can stand without assistance?" The Headmaster inquired politely and Hermione had to fight the urge not to giggle as it finally hit her what he was wearing. The royal purple, velvet robes with that bright orange hair... Who would have guessed that Albus Dumbledore once had hair that could rival any one of the Weasleys? That was something she had definitely not seen coming.

Though, in retrospect, she supposed she should. His element was fire, his familiar was a Phoenix and he was the most fashionably flamboyant person she knew.

"Yes, I think so," she managed as she began to sit up. Every muscle protested the movement with sore reminders of the ordeal she had lived through but beyond that she seemed ok. It was as she stood and felt the weight of the time turner resettle against her chest, that she realized what she would have to do.

Her plan had not counted on this. In the plan, she would have arrived at the entrance to the Room of Requirement, giving her time to change and calm herself before performing the spell that would forever prevent anyone from taking the time turner away from her again.

If she didn't do this now, she would lack the element of surprise when they inevitably discovered the item and she had no desire to see Azkaban in this time or the future. Performing the spell on a time turner that technically didn't exist yet that she had conveniently just removed all the restricting and tracking wards from earlier before the time shift meant that what she was about to do would not alert the Ministry.

But it was bound to cause a few surprises.

There was a collective gasp as she pulled the time turner out from inside her robes. However, while the others were stunned with surprise, the Headmaster was more prepared. In a sudden shift of wandless magic, he had attempted to seize the item from her hands but she had anticipated his quick response and had already begun the first binding steps to the spell when the magic hit was cast, repelled uselessly off a golden barrier of light.

The first thing that happened was the pain, immense and excruciating, in the palm of her hand where the time turner lay. The scream that was torn from her throat was blood curdling, ringing off the walls of the room with shrill agony and sending a collective chill through the castle.

Still, she concentrated, even as she watched the gold melt into a liquid, burning her skin as it began to twist around her wrists and up her forearms, singing skin away wherever it touched and leaving an impeccable line of sparkling gold in its wake.

Her robes were burned away as it continued to spiral up her arms and down her sides to leave two sharp lines on each side of her lower stomach like an intricate tribal tattoo that framed her naval. She screamed and thrashed in pain as the light continued to sear through flesh until the markings continued on both her legs, stopping to curl into a small, half spiral at the top of each foot.

As the light died away, it revealed a once-again unconscious and completely naked Hermione left bare to the eyes of the Headmaster, the Potions Master Slughorn, the school Mediwitch and two sixth year students.

It was going to be an interesting year.

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><p><strong>AN: Reviews are my fuel<strong>


	3. Chapter 3

She didn't cry. It seemed preposterous to do so now. She had thought she might when Dumbledore left her alone in the hospital wing after their little chat. It certainly seemed what any normal girl would do in her situation, cry. But somehow that didn't sit right with her. Anyway, the tears simply wouldn't come.

She knew she probably should. It couldn't be healthy not to grieve over the loss of her family and friends. And she certainly missed everyone already when she was so used to waking up in one of these beds with their faces to greet her but it seemed the shock of the situation had left her in a sort of twilight state of mind. And besides that, what good ever came from crying?

No, the sensible thing to do was to think about her situation logically. She had achieved what she had set out to do. Nearly died in the process, to be sure but that was always a risk she was willing to take, wasn't it?

Of course, she had prepared herself for the eventuality where things went horribly wrong. Like, say, send her to a totally different time period than the one she was shooting for.

She had originally planned to go back six years and defeat Voldemort and all his Horcruxes back in their first year, when he was just a parasite on the back of Professor Quirrel's head. She would tell Dumbledore at the start of term, tell him about the journal Ginny would find, the horrible locket in Grimmauld Place, the cursed ring, Harry and whatever else there may be, they could work together as a team to discover. That way, Voldemort would be weakened and unable to resurrect himself before the war ever even began and perhaps there wouldn't even be a war at all with him in such a vulnerable state.

But something had altered her timeline and she was now sitting in a time period well before Harry was ever even born. Her mission could still be accomplished, yes, but it would have to be rethought. She couldn't just go gushing to Dumbledore about everything she knew. _"Awful things have happened to wizards who meddle with time" _and all that.

No, she had to plan it out, get all her ducks in a row. Decide what information the Headmaster would need to know and what he wouldn't. Unveiling certain facts could cause a chain reaction that would have the potential to knock out the history she was so familiar with altogether and she wouldn't be so useful anymore if she couldn't predict the future. That would jeopardize the entire point of her expedition and make all her sacrifice for nothing and she couldn't allow that to happen.

As it were, she would be going to school with several well known Death Eaters and was sure she'd have her arms full with that knowledge as she walked the halls but that wasn't something to concern the Headmaster with, not when they would have such bigger fish to fry. She would have to defend herself, that was to be sure and put on a strong initial front before she made herself a target, not go crying to professors when she was inevitably cursed in the hallways. She was a new student in a turbulent time period and probably already a topic of great interest since she had quite literally crashed into a classroom.

Now she was evermore grateful to her forethought to request the Death Eater information she had gleaned from Madam Pince. She knew how most of them would die or not die and which ones particularly to look out for which meant she was all the more prepared to face this time period despite the setbacks.

After all, there was no way forward in time, only back. The point of binding herself with the turner was only so that she would be capable of going back again in case she made a mistake. Now that she was here, there was no other way of getting to the future other than living through it.

The softly falling snow viewable from the hospital wing's window seemed to be her only clue as to how long she'd been unconscious and she let that thought distract her from her current line of thought. How could she have slept clear through Christmas? Vaguely she remembered Dumbledore mentioning something about Madam Pomfrey keeping her on a steady dose of Dreamless Sleep so she could heal. Perhaps that was why her head still seemed so muggy.

He hadn't asked about her markings, which Madam Pomfrey had taken to calling "Time Wounds" and regularly dressed in a salve that smelled of mint and burned like tea tree oil. Of all her injuries, those had been the worst to heal. She wiggled her fingers experimentally, watching the gold lines around her wrists glitter in the candle light and finding she could tolerate the slight sting the movement caused without wincing. Turning her hands over, she traced the golden infinity symbol burned into the center of her palms with a single digit curiously.

She had really thought he would have made mention of her actions. The fall through time could be assumed an accident but the spell she performed afterwards could not. The spell's importance to her mission was irrelevant. Why hadn't he asked about it? Did he have some idea of what happened already?

She admitted to herself that she was grateful he hadn't asked. Perhaps he hadn't brought it up because he thought she'd be embarrassed? She had certainly been stark naked in front of him, the healer, Slughorn and two students in the class, that was for sure. Or so Madam Pomfrey had told her when she first woke up.

She had been sure she was due for an interrogation as soon as he'd strolled in through the double doors of the ward and sat at her bedside but he'd merely explained that she would be enrolled in classes after Christmas break, handed her a time table, asked after her health and then dismissed himself as quickly and as cheerfully as he'd appeared, although, not before informing her that they were still in need of a nice long chat before she would be released from Madam Pomfrey's care.

What would she say?

The Horcruxes and Voldemort's rise to power were inevitably to be explained in detail. That meant the Potters, since Harry would become a Horcrux. It was a strange feeling, to absorb the fact that she would be the one to tell Dumbledore this crucial and delicate piece of information when he was the one that had told her and Ron in his office only a year ago, in the year Umbridge took up residence at Hogwarts and before they had lost Sirius. Told them because he knew that Harry would not understand why he couldn't look at him or speak to him directly for fear of the Dark Lord peering through him, once it became apparent that Occlumency lessons with Snape had been a terrible idea.

They were supposed to keep the secret, show support and not ask questions. But Hermione had never been the type to not ask questions and it could hardly be held against her that she had found a plan to fix the horror her previous timeline had turned into.

The ring had been the crux of it, when Dumbledore arrived for dinner in the Great Hall and she had gotten a glimpse of his horribly blackened hand. Even if she hadn't, Harry had mentioned it, so she had an idea of what it might mean long before she had been in the same room with it to judge for herself.

She could sense the curse from her seat at Gryffindor table and that ring, that horribly unfamiliar ring, practically pulsed with a filthy, dark type of magic that raised the hair of her arms up. She knew it was a Horcrux and she knew it would kill him.

That had been her deciding factor. Beyond the Muggle attacks or the increasing losses they sustained in the Order during the conflict, beyond the loss of Sirius and Cedric, it was the thought of loosing Dumbledore that finally stayed her hand. They couldn't win the war without Dumbledore and if they did they would sustain massive losses all around the board. It would crumble morale beyond hope or reason.

Who would lead the Order? Run Hogwarts? Nothing would stand in Voldemort's way. And Harry shouldn't have to die for the cause no matter how willingly he might be to lay his life on the alter for all of them. She was the brightest witch of her age and if anyone could do it, she could. She could save Dumbledore and destroy the Horcruxes long before Harry was ever even born.

She could give him back the life that was taken from him and everyone else affected by the world Voldemort had created. But as payment... Here she drew a deep breath. As payment, she would live out the rest of her life from the year 1977. It would not be safe to see her parents for another nineteen years, as she would not yet be born for another two in 1979.

But she had told herself she would not cry and so she rolled herself over and forced herself to rest, instead. Things would look better tomorrow.


End file.
